Maryam Jafri (Pakistan, Karachi 1972)
She lives and works in Copenaghen and New York.
For the past fifteen years she has worked across varied media including expanded sculpture, video, and photography, with a specific interest in questioning the cultural and visual representation of history, politics, and economy. Her practice is informed by a research-based, interdisciplinary process that draws upon diverse traditions from literature and theater to pop and conceptual art. Research topics ranging from the production of desire versus the production of goods (Avalon, 2011), the politics of food (Mouthfeel, 2014) to photo/text works focusing on the digitalization of the photographic image and its consequences for issues as diverse as cultural memory and copyright law (Getty vs. Ghana, Corbis vs. Mozambique, 2012) to sculptural installations focusing on the impact of graphic design, branding, and display on our everyday habits (Generic Corner, 2015, Product Recall: An Index of Innovation, 2014-2015).
Very often the research for one work leads to the starting point for another work in a different media, such as the sculptural installation Product Recall: An Index of Innovation (2014-2015) that grew out of initial research for my video Mouthfeel (2014). The two works stand independently of one another but also constitute a dialogue between themes, media, and approaches. Mouthfeel, in which she acts, direct, and write, harnesses the language of soap operas to probe global consumer culture. Product Recall: An Index of Innovation combines objects, texts, and photographs of failed products in a dark, pop-infused exploration of postwar American consumer culture. Her most recent work, Generic Corner (2015), focuses on another neglected aspect of American consumer culture – the once widespread, now mostly forgotten black and white generic items that graced supermarkets across the country in the late 1970s and 80s. Independence Day 1934-1975 (2009-ongoing) is fueled by her interest in questions of heritage and the archive, and the role of photography in the formation of national narratives during the process of decolonization in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Her works often bring together both found and original material, whether in installation or moving image formats. In her video Avalon (2011) staged scenes were combined with documentary footage to offer a meditation on the links between affect, labor, and commodity under contemporary global conditions.
Above all her interdisciplinary art practice is grounded in an engagement with the formal and conceptual qualities of each media, periods of extensive research and planning, and the mysterious but crucial role played by forces that lie outside deliberation and preparation such as accident, chance, and intuition.
Notable solo exhibitions include at Vanabbe, Eindhoven, Tabakalera, San Sebastian, Kunsthalle Basel, Betonsalon (Paris), Gasworks (London) and an upcoming solo show at Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver. Recent and upcoming biennials include Sao Paolo Biennial, Venice Biennial (Belgian Pavilion), Manifesta 9, Shanghai, Taipei, Bucharest, Thessaloniki, and Quebec City Biennials among others. Recent group exhibitions include “Fassbinder & Contemporary Video Art” at Martin Gropius Bau, “Past is Present: Murals” at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and “Meepting Points 9” at Beirut Art Center. ” My work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Frieze, Mousse, Camera Austria, Art Papers, Texte Zur Kunst, Kunstforum, and elsewhere.